Plagiarism and AI Use Policy
Readings in Political Economy is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity, research ethics, and responsible scholarly publishing. Authors are expected to ensure that all submitted manuscripts are original, accurately reported, and prepared in accordance with internationally accepted ethical principles.
Plagiarism Policy
The Journal has a zero-tolerance policy toward plagiarism and any form of academic misconduct. Submitted manuscripts must be the authors’ own original work and must not contain copied text, ideas, figures, tables, or other materials without appropriate acknowledgment and citation.
All manuscripts undergo plagiarism screening using recognized similarity detection software before entering the peer review process. Similarity reports are evaluated by the Editorial Office to distinguish acceptable scholarly overlap, such as references, quotations, standard methodological descriptions, and legally reusable content, from inappropriate textual copying.
The following practices are considered unacceptable:
● Direct plagiarism without proper citation.
● Self-plagiarism or duplicate publication of previously published work.
● Mosaic or patchwork plagiarism.
● Data fabrication or falsification.
● Image manipulation intended to misrepresent research findings.
● Unauthorized use of copyrighted material.
Where substantial plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct are identified, the Journal reserves the right to reject the manuscript immediately. If misconduct is discovered after publication, appropriate editorial actions, including publication of corrections, expressions of concern, or article retractions, may be taken in accordance with recognized publication ethics guidelines.
Authors remain solely responsible for the originality and authenticity of their submitted work.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy
The Journal recognizes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly being used to assist researchers during manuscript preparation. AI-assisted tools may be used only as supportive writing, language editing, formatting, translation, or organizational tools.
Authors remain fully responsible for every aspect of the manuscript, including its originality, accuracy, scientific validity, interpretation, citations, ethical compliance, and overall integrity. The use of AI does not transfer responsibility for the content from the authors.
AI systems or automated tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors, as they cannot meet accepted authorship criteria, assume responsibility for published work, declare conflicts of interest, or provide accountability for the research.
Where AI tools have made a substantial contribution to the preparation of a manuscript beyond routine spelling or grammar correction, authors should disclose their use in an appropriate section of the manuscript. The disclosure should briefly describe the AI tool used and the purpose for which it was employed.
Authors must not use AI-generated content without careful human review and verification. AI-generated text, analyses, references, statistical outputs, interpretations, images, tables, or other materials must be critically evaluated for accuracy and reliability before inclusion in a manuscript. Authors are responsible for ensuring that all references are genuine, correctly cited, and retrievable.
AI tools must not be used to fabricate research data, generate fictitious citations, manipulate images or research results, create false experimental findings, or engage in any activity that compromises research integrity or the peer review process.
The Editorial Office reserves the right to request clarification regarding the use of AI tools during manuscript preparation and may take appropriate editorial action if undisclosed or inappropriate AI use is found to have affected the integrity of a submission.
The Journal encourages the responsible, transparent, and ethical use of emerging technologies while maintaining the fundamental principles of originality, accountability, scholarly integrity, and trust in academic publishing.
